


His Father's Son

by captainhurricane



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 01:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhurricane/pseuds/captainhurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fathers and sons through times past and present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Father's Son

_the crusades_

What remained was the cry of a little boy. Father, father, repeats he and spreads his arms like wishing to fly. An eagle-child he is and without wings. He watches, the cold wing of the fortress biting into the skinny legs hidden under a white robe. Father, he cries. Yet his father is finished, gone, dead like the cold stone walls.  It wasn't always so, once there was a smile only reserved for the boy and a pat to a small head. You did good, had the rough voice echoed. To little Altaïr his father had been an eagle and not a mere man. Not just once or twice did Altaïr see his father fly, jump from high; like he stayed like that, a moment suspended in time. Arms spread, white-clad and lean. As a little boy Altaïr had no word for it but he knows now. His father was a eagle and not always there; Altaïr is an eagle but he is also a man. His own children, his little boys are there and they yearn for his presence but he finds it hard. Altaïr delves into his own mind and the visions the artefact in his hands shows him; and his sons drift from him, all the way to the most bitter end.

At the end; Altaïr, master, father and a husband is nothing more than a frail shell of what used to be, with nothing but an ancient Apple in his hands and a distraught son sent away.

* 

_renaissance_

_You are an Auditore, a fighter. So fight._ Sometimes he dreams of those words, in his moments alone when there is no warmth in his bed other than his own. Words that his father never truly said to him but still ring true. Ezio has always seen the bright side of life, taken his enjoyment in the winds on top of towers, in women's soft smiles and the steady ground beneath his running feet. Never had he thought his father was secretive, nothing but harmless and friendly, stern only when needed to keep hold of four children. Only rarely does Ezio think of the lost members of his family, especially in later years and when stepping into the role of a father himself. Only rarely he remembers the windy night and stone beneath his hands, father's frantic face and voice from behind bars. A guide, kind of, the spark to Ezio's fire. Always ushering for his boys and his girls to go on, to live on. Climb higher, aim higher! He does, he stops on rooftops and takes in the cities underneath. He remembers a father who was strong with a quick-mind. He loves fiercely and fights so that all people could be free. At the end, understanding comes to him late. Life, liberty, justice. And above all, love.

Love is what created him and love is what gave him a purpose. Ezio sees it in his wife's eyes and the eyes of his children. He feels it as he sighs for very last time.

*

_the revolution_

Quickly the anger swindles into feelings more complicated; there are reasons he lives with his anger, it fuels the need for justice when other feelings disturb his path to his goal, to freedom- quickly the anger changes but doesn't go away. He walks in his father's footsteps, as tall as he is but a distance too great between them. Ratonhnhaké:ton is a man of few words and more action, holding his mother's last words close to his heart and thinking that he never needed a father anyway. Not for hunting or finding a place of his own in the world, not when he learned his father was an enemy. Maybe then when his father stands before him, tall and proud, chin always slightly cocked up like with the belief of being confident in his own self.  An enemy, his senses say. Your father, his heart tells him. Such a question is what he struggles with. It is only after when his father has faded into a bloody mark on his history, only then Ratonhnhaké:ton (a boy still at heart), lets him try to understand a prideful mind such as his father's. He hoped, secretly wished for reconciliation, a chance to gain instead of lose; yet life is no fairytale.

 _Sakataterihwáhten._ He takes off the paintings but the dull ache of loneliness stays.

*

_the end of the world_

What remains is the thumping of his own, unsteady heart. A flood of memories about a past that was and shouldn't have been, anger where there should have been love. My son, my son, he whispers and his voice is as rough as the walls of the temple that seem to fall when his son does. What words and actions are there to make it better; to rewind time, to say I love you again and let him hear it; to take back the harsh words and the abuse. My son, thumps his heart, almost loud enough to conceal the thump his son's body makes when it hits the floor, lifeless. He reaches out and knows it's too little, too late. His throat burns. My son. It is his last thought as darkness overtakes him.

**Author's Note:**

> partly inspired by Miracle of Sound's awesome AC3-song His Father's Son.


End file.
